By day, Chang was working for secretaries of state. By night, he was DJing for crowds in Paris and New York.

Chang, 41, currently senior vice president of communications with the Albright Stonebridge Group, was previously a Foreign Service officer for 18 years, during which time he also DJed and photographed Fashion Week.

“I came about it rather organically,” he said, “as I started by seeking out good music, new music and befriending DJs and haunting the same record stores and finding vinyl first, then just jumping behind the turntables at bars, etc., and learning as I went along.”

As a special assistant to Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell until 2001, Chang’s “shift” schedule actually allowed him to be able to DJ. But at the beginning of his Foreign Service career, Chang kept the two separate “because for me, it was still edgy and unknown.”

Following his posting in Washington, Chang worked at the U.S. Mission in Paris as a public affairs officer, where his sideline gig as a DJ began to take off.

“I didn’t want to be a novelty of, ‘Oh, he’s a slash slash.’ I wanted to be a good DJ; I wanted to do a good job.”

By the time Chang left Paris in 2004, he was inviting his diplomatic colleagues to shows.

“After two years or so, I was comfortable enough that I had established myself,” Chang said, “so if someone was like ‘Ambassador, did you know that your assistant’s a DJ?’ … It’s OK at that point.”

Chang continued his cultural and professional influence in New York as he served as deputy spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations under Ambassadors John Danforth and John Bolton and (through friends he’d met in the fashion world in Paris) as a back-of-house photographer for fashion shows for seven seasons, and “DJing quickly fell by the wayside.”

Chang was perhaps the only diplomat who had memorized maps from the U.N. to Bryant Park, then the location of New York’s Fashion Week shows.

“I knew how to get across those blocks by foot, running, by taxi, by bus, underground, any mode, at any time of day and what the travel time would be,” said Chang, who shot an array of shows by designers such as Vivienne Tam, Alexander Wang, Bill Blass, Rebecca Taylor, Diane von Furstenberg and Jill Stuart and was published on Elle.com.

Chang eventually returned to Washington to join the National Security Council in 2008, “right after the September shows,” but found his photography talents utilized, as well. In addition to his role as the “comms guy” he was the official photographer for then-U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice’s delegation trips to South Sudan and Libya.

But Chang found the music scene in Washington also changed.

“The notion of a DJ was more popularized, more socialized, so the juxtaposed identity I had was more known,” Chang said, who DJed events such as the State Department’s Fourth of July party last year, inauguration parties and the opening of Brooks Brothers in Georgetown.

After leaving the Foreign Service, Chang worked with the Podesta Group before joining ASG earlier this year.

Past DJ names included DJ MSG and DJ Hong Kong Hefner, but he just goes by DJ Ben Chang these days and says his current DJing is limited to events within D.C. However, the next big event on his schedule is his own wedding this fall to Ashley Chandler of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Chang jokes with his friends about whether he will DJ or photograph the big day (he won’t), but from his own political and music experience, he knew just whom to book.

“A New York DJ I worked with,” and a photographer who, “when not shooting Haiti recovery efforts, will be shooting our wedding."